


The Simple Touch of Lips

by FanFicReader01



Category: Poets of the Fall
Genre: Coming of Age, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, guess its sort of coming of age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-25 18:04:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFicReader01/pseuds/FanFicReader01
Summary: Markus POVA kiss.Such an easy and short word. It seems to be so simple, so uninteresting if you state it like that.Yet, a kiss can become so much more if you do it with the right person.Because then the simple touch of lips can mean the whole universe to you.





	1. 10

The first time I experienced a kiss, it was with another boy.

He was ten, just like me but he was a bit taller than me and he had blond hair, not dark like me.

We were playing at the playground of our school.

 

~~

 

“Markus?” the boy asks me as we sit on the seesaw. He goes up, I go down.

“What is it, Marko?” I want to know.

“Do you think my mother will get me soon? The skies are getting greyer and greyer,” Marko seems to be worried. Now I go up and he goes down.

 “I don’t know. If she doesn’t come, you can come with me,” I suggest.

“You mean under the bridge?”

“No. At the ‘abandoned’ part of the train station,” I say. It’s not really abandoned since the homeless found their shelter there. And I’m one of them.

 “Oh, okay. Sounds nice.”

“It’s not always nice,” I counter. “But it will be nice if you’re with me.”

Then we stare at the sky together. Thick clouds have gathered above the school. The playground is abandoned except for us and it looks like we’re the only boys left on this godforsaken world.

 

To be honest, the thought of it sounds appealing to me.

Just Marko and me against the world and the rain.

 

“Come here,” I gesture Marko to abandon the seesaw. He walks over to me and I throw my jacket over our heads to protect us from the rain.

He rests his head against mine. “You’re warm, Markus.”

 “Oh.”

And so we stand in the rain with a jacket above our heads. The darn thing doesn’t help much.

We are waiting and waiting until a car drives by and stops in front of the school gates.

 “That’s my mom’s car!” Marko remarks excited. I smile but also feel a bit sad inside. That means Marko will leave me and I’m all alone again. Yet I don’t feel like returning to the train station already.

 “I see you next week!” Marko exclaims as he is already leaving me.

I just remain still and look at him. I force a new smile on my lips and wave him goodbye. He waves back.

It’s difficult to remain happy when my only friend is about to leave. Marko notices the change in my face and walks back.

 “Don’t worry, Markus. We’ll see each other after the weekend is over! I’ll miss you! Maybe I can visit you if my mom allows me!” Marko pats me on the shoulder.

 “It’s okay, Marko. You don’t have to visit me. But yeah, will miss you too.”

Then Marko does something I didn’t expect him to do. He inches closer and gives me a kiss on the lips.

The kiss is super short, maybe not even a second and yet it feels like a whole darn minute to me.

While the rain around us keeps falling, time seems to slow down for me.

Finally Marko parts and smiles and I return him a genuine smile.

 “See you, Markus!”

“See you, Marko.”

 

I see the car with Marko in it leave and I keep staring at it until the vehicle becomes a dot among dots of rain.

Now I lower my jacket: it’s soaked anyway. I look up at the sky once more and feel the rain come down on me. I reflect on what just happened.

I just got kissed for the first time. I got kissed by Marko, my friend. I wonder if he had kissed someone else before or if I was his first kiss as well.

That simple touch of lips felt so important to me at that moment. That simple gesture told me Marko was the best friend I ever had.


	2. 15

During a hot afternoon, I’m sitting in Marko’s room. We’re doing homework together.

While I’m doing some equations, I secretly peek over at my friend who doesn’t seem to work on math at all.

 “Markus!” he gets startled and I laugh because I caught him off-guard.

“That’s not math,” I state even though I know Marko is stubborn.

 “It’s for our music class. So at least it’s _homework_ ,” he counters. “Besides, it’s more fun than math.”

“Music?”

Marko nods and I actually have to agree.

“Yes. But our teacher is so unpassionate about it,” Marko complains. I have to laugh because it’s true.

“What do you want to become?” my friend asks me. He rolls himself away from his desk on his cool office chair with wheels.

“Not be homeless. A nice apartment would be nice. And a decent job,” I mutter.

“We could share an apartment. That way, we don’t have to pay the whole rent by ourselves but we can divide it,” Marko comments with a smile. His eyes twinkle with so much life.

It’s fun to dream together with my friend and I like his idea: living in an apartment with Marko must be fun.

 “Great idea. Do you have any job in mind?” I ask him.

“Yes, I have. I want to do something with music! Become a singer, play the guitar and buy a keyboard!” Marko muses.

He dreams big. “Gosh, you really want it all, huh?” I jokingly chuckle.

 “Yes, I know I’m too ambitious.”

“One can dream and try to achieve their dream,” I admit. “I think you can become a singer for real, Marko. You have a great voice,” I let him know.

 “Oh, well, thank you,” Marko starts to blush. He looks cute and it makes me blush as well.

 

Then we return to our homework but it’s difficult to concentrate when Marko’s practicing on his recorder and also hums from time to time. Besides, the heat of the sun is very distracting and there’s no fan or air-conditioning in Marko’s room.

We don’t want to go downstairs either because his parents are home and Marko is afraid they will embarrass him in my presence.

  “I can’t do this anymore!” I give up.

“Finally you’re talking smart,” Marko laughs. I turn him around in his chair and quirk an eyebrow at him.

 “You’re the reason I can’t concentrate, you know?”

He laughs that dorky laugh of his again and sniggers: “I know. Why don’t we have some fun instead?”

 “It’s hot outside. It’s hot inside. There’s not much to do,” I grunt.

“Well, just sitting together on my bed can be fun, right?” Marko pouts and I give in.

 

And so the two of us sit together on his bed. Back to back.

 “Interesting way of having fun,” I remark.

Marko’s cackle causes a vibration that’s felt in my back. After some silent time passes, I start to feel really sweaty and I’m sure my shirt’s glued to Marko’s. It makes me pull away and I turn around.

My friend, surprised by the loss of contact turns around so he can face me.

 “It got a bit sticky”

“Oh, I’m sorry for being too hot for you,” Marko jokes. His comment gets followed by an awkward silence as we stare at each other.

I scratch the back of my head and avoid Marko’s eyes.

 “Well, that was awkward,” my friend states the obvious. “I-, eh, I’ve been thinking, Markus.”

“About what?” I want to know.

 “Thinking about something that happened a long time ago. When we were younger.”

“What is it then?” I dare to ask. I wonder if he’s talking about the happening I still think about up till this day.

 “The kiss in the rain,” Marko mutters. He plucks at his shirt and stares at his blanket.

So he remembers it, I think.

 “We were young. We were kids,” I bluntly comment. I say it like I regretted it but I didn’t regret it. In fact, I _loved_ it. I wonder if Marko regrets kissing me.

 “I know. But now we’re still boys, are we not?”

“We’re fifteen, Marko,” I grunt but in reality I’m painfully curious on what Marko wants from me.

 “True, true. So, back then, we might not really knew what we were doing,” my friend murmurs, still not making eye-contact.

Then I can’t keep the question in me any longer: “So do you regret that kiss or why do you mention this all of a sudden?”

 “No! No! Far from it! I never regretted kissing you, Markus! You’re my _best_ friend! Maybe I _did_ know what I was doing, but I not fully realized it. That kiss, it just happened, you know? It just happened. And first I was a little bit shocked. But then I thought: it felt so natural kissing my friend. It felt as normal as drinking water,” Marko confesses.

Now he shyly looks at me and I have to blink a few times.

 “So, eh, do _you_ regret getting kissed by me?” he returns the question.

“Not at all. You were my first kiss, to be honest. And I liked it. I actually never dared to tell you how important it felt to me,” I now admit.

We both giggle nervously.

 “It felt like kissing was on my to-do-list, on my bucket list,” I joke to lighten the  mood.

“So, now that we’re older,’ Marko starts, looking away once more, ‘Should we try it again?”

“Kissing?” I stammer.

“Yes, so we both really know what’s going on.” Marko squeezes his eyes shut and heavily nods.

 

Another long silence.

“Sure,” I finally manage to say. And when Marko opens his eyes, I close our distance and kiss my friend on his lips.

It almost feels like we’re those kids of ten again. Time seems to slow down anew. The sun keeps burning and turning this bedroom into an oven but now I feel like I’m getting burnt by Marko’s lips. But in a very pleasant way.

When I finally break our kiss, my friend seems breathless.

 “Whoa,” he sighs.

“Whoa indeed,” I pant. Now blue eyes look into brown ones.

How could the simple touch of lips make me feel so alive, so young and bold and _loved_? Because Marko really loved me and I loved him back.


	3. 30

I’m watching some ships sail by at the docks. The slow up and down movements from the anchored ships give me a certain serenity even though I would be dizzy if I were to be on an actual ship.

I was on a boat once with my good old friend Marko.

He and a friend from college would go on a holiday with said friend’s boat. They asked me to come with them but as soon as we left the harbour I got real sick.

After that embarrassing moment, I told myself to never enter a ship again.

 

“Marko,” his name escapes my lips in a sigh before I know it.

The last time I saw him must’ve been at least five years ago. Even before that we didn’t see each other very often anymore. He was in college and I was working already.

After he graduated, he moved to another country. I would’ve followed him if I had the money.

We wrote each other letters from time to time but that started to lessen as well.

Maybe it had to do with the fact we lived so far away or that we were finally becoming ‘real’ adults.

‘Real’, I didn’t like that word.

The only ‘real’ thing I knew was my love for Marko. Yet, sometimes I was afraid thinking if his love for me wouldn’t be the same or if it had changed or even extinguished.

The latter thought sends some unwanted shivers down my spine.

 

“What a day huh? A gentle breeze yet there’s some sun out there,” a voice rips me out of my thoughts that started to get gloomier.

I don’t look up but instead I nod. That voice, I know it. Yet, it can’t be true, can it?

 “So, watching the ships?”

“Yes. The subtle movements of the anchored boats somehow ease my mind. Silly, is it not? The majority of people would get dizzy by just looking at them”, I mutter a reply, firmly looking straight forward.

 “That surprises me a little,” the voice sounds amused.

“Oh really?” I’m still not facing the stranger who’s now sitting next to me. I can almost feel his shoulder touch mine.

 “Yes. I’d deem you a guy who’s not only dizzy from being on a boat but also from watching them.”

“Well, you’re only correct with the first part. I get seasick when I’m on a boat,” I slightly chuckle and think about the embarrassing moment when I threw up on the deck of Marko’s friend’s boat.

 “Funny, I used to know a guy who got seasick. He even threw up on the boat itself. He was so mortified because of that. But he really shouldn’t be. Such things happen to more people.”

 “Oh,” I whisper.

“I really loved that guy, you know? He was a good friend of mine,” the stranger sighs and in the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of the man smiling.

 “I miss him. We grew up together, played together. We went to high school together as well. He used to be homeless but that didn’t bother me. That doesn’t define a person.”

 “Well, you must be glad he isn’t homeless anymore, huh?” I snort.

“Yeah. Too bad we didn’t see each other that much after I went to college. Even less when I moved away. The letters were being written but the number started to decrease. I still regret what I wrote in one of them. It was my final stupid letter to him,” the other man coughs uncomfortably.

I still don’t dare to give him a look.

 “I bet that if that friend of yours knows you genuinely regretted it, he would forgive you,” I softly reply. Subtly I let my shoulder press against the other man’s shoulder.

 “Really?” now I feel the man’s eyes on me and I turn my head.

We make eye-contact for the first time. Blue eyes look into brown ones.

 “Yes, I forgave you almost immediately afterwards but I never had the guts to write you again. So many written but unsend notes and drabbles,” I say while shaking my head.

 

 “I missed you, Markus,” Marko now says as he almost breaks down in tears. I don’t like to see my friend cry.

I lean into him and embrace him. I give my best friend a warm hug.

 “I missed you too, Marko. God, I missed you so much,” I can’t help to let some tears roll down my cheeks.

As we part, we give each other a look. Although it must’ve been years since we saw each other, it feels like yesterday when we said our goodbyes at the docks.

Ah, maybe that was the reason why I visited the harbour so often. Maybe I thought it would somehow bring me a tad closer to my friend.

 “I’m sorry for the childish and mean words in that letter,” Marko sniffs.

“It’s okay. Didn’t I already told you I forgave you for that?” I smile.

My friend rests his head against my shoulder. It’s funny how I, in the end, became taller than him.

“Y-yeah, but still…,” Marko mutters against my shoulder and I press a careful smooch on his forehead.

“Hush. So, what brings you here? Got tired of work?” I joke.

 “Got tired of not seeing you,” he whispers back. Is he serious? He leans back and gives me a wink.

“I’m very serious, Markus.”

 “So you gave up your job in France for… me?!” I joke. He can’t be serious, right?

“Guess so. Where do you live now?”

 “Still in the same small flat but life is pretty okay. Except that you’re not there with me,” I chuckle.

“But… are you _really_ serious about giving up your job? I mean…,” words start to fail me as I blabber on.

Marko then puts a finger on my mouth to silence me and laughs.

The adorkable laugh, from when he was still a kid, is back.

 “I know I’m too ambitious for my own good!”

“I know, I know. But what if I moved? Or what if I didn’t want to be your lov- friend anymore?” I stammer, still flabbergasted by Marko’s seemingly abrupt decision to leave France behind like that.

 “Because I know you still loved me. Guess that’s the only thing I was _really_ sure of this whole time,” Marko simply smiles at me.

I roll my eyes and give him a friendly poke and he does the same back. Before we know it, we’re poking and tickling each other like we’re those naïve boys again and not some thirty years olds.

 

The crack of thunder interrupts our fooling around and we look up at the sky almost simultaneously.

 “Oh, rain. Guess another old friend’s back, huh,” Marko snickers.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s go home or… where do _you_ live now?”

“Not anywhere yet. Still have all my stuff back at the hotel,” Marko murmurs. It’s still unbelievable.

I snort: “Guess I influenced your way of acting huh?”

 “You mean chasing my dreams?” Marko guesses and I nod.

“Exactly.”

“Well, it’s fun chasing you,” Marko cheekily says, making me stop in my tracks.

“You mean _I_ am your dream?”

 “Yes, my second big dream is becoming a full-fletched singer,” Marko says it with such honesty and without shame. I’m slightly jealous. Why can’t I express my feelings as well as him?

“Damn,” is all I can say. Knowing that I’m part of Marko’s wildest dreams is quite a flattering fact to me.

The rest of the trip to my flat is spent in silence. During our walk, we’ve subconsciously entwined our fingers and so we’re walking shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand.

And then the rain starts falling and we don’t mind at all.

 “I always kind of loved the rain,” I randomly comment.

“Because it reminds you of your first kiss?” Marko knows me too well.

“Yes,” I say, “So every time I feel the rain on my skin, it feels like you’re kissing me.”

 

We’ve finally arrived at the flat.

 “It really feels like coming home,” Marko muses as we stand in front of the main doors of the building. When I check my friend’s expression, melancholy and homesickness are readable in his face.

 I gulp when his blue eyes look into mine.

“I love you, Markus. Do you even realize that?” he says in a low voice.

Speechless, I nod.

I want to kiss him. I want to kiss Marko. So suddenly my hand grabs him by his collar and I pull him in for a desperate kiss.

My lips are firmly pressed against his. Marko tastes like homecoming.

That simple touch of lips makes me feel so much. It’s like a picture. You see one thing but experience so much more than that.

 And kissing Marko now, feels like catching up on all the lost years without each other.


	4. 40

Outside it’s raining and I’m in a local pub, drinking. I should return home to Marko soon.

Of course, I forgot my umbrella. Well, at least I can change clothes once I’m home.

The rain is even heavier as I leave the pub. The walk to our flat shouldn’t take long but due to the rain I can hardly see a thing.

I clutch onto my jacket and try to withstand the strong winds as well.

 “Only ten minutes and I’m back home, Marko” I mutter to myself.

Who could’ve known those ten minutes would become four weeks?

 

The last thing I remember is a car who slipped due to the rain. Then I’m flying through the sky, like a ragdoll.

It’s almost like an out-of-body-experience. My body crashes onto the street again and then everything goes black.

 

_Marko._

_Where are you, Marko? Where am_ I? _Do I even still exist?_

_Am I in heaven? Am I dead? Am I somewhere in-between?_

_As I take in my surroundings, I notice a thick mist around me. I’m afraid it will swallow me and take my breath away.  Nervously I try to touch my neck but_ where _is my neck?_

_I try to breath but I can’t. It’s a terrifying feeling: to be but at the same time not really._

 

“Wil he make it?” Marko’s voice is heard somewhere but I do not know where. I cannot see him. Only hear him.

I want to reach out to him and say: “I’m right here, Marko! Please, wait for me. Marko!”

But it seems that I do not possess a voice, nor a hand or a body at all.

 

_Days go by without me having any touch with reality. Sometimes I hear unfamiliar voices whisper things. From time to time I hear Marko speak to me. Most of the time he is heard crying._

_I hate it when Marko is crying._

_Finally a day comes when I kind of “materialize” a body. I can walk through the white mist in seemingly endless loops._

_There’s nothing special for me in this world of clouds. Even if I would have a bed or something here, that’s not what I need. I need Marko to be here. I want to see his lovely face. See that gorgeous smile with the most enthralling set of eyes I’ve ever seen._

_I want to_ feel _Marko here with me. I need his touch to know I’m still real._

_Gosh, I miss him so much._

_One day, I get blinded a few times by a bright light in the distance._

_“Wait! Wait for me! Come back!” I yell at the light that goes on and off constantly._

_I run towards seemingly nothing and exhausted I fall on my knees._

_“Wait, Marko. Wait for me,” I murmur._

_More days pass where I get blinded by lights every now and then._

_This time, however, the light’s accompanied by voices again._

 

“He is reacting!”

“He’s what?” the voice of my friend is heard. I can’t be any happier. I missed that sweet voice.

Marko, you’re still here.

“His pupils just reacted to the light like they should,” the stranger’s voice clarifies.

“Oh, thank god for that! Markus! Markus, can you hear me?!” Marko’s voice reappears again. He sounds so desperate.

And for a second I’m sure this mist world I’m in, gets shaken around.

 “Sir! Please, sir, don’t wiggle the patient,” the assumingly nurse voice  says.

“Markus! Please, tell me you’re still there! Oh god, Markus! Answer me!” Marko sounds broken, oh so broken.

It hurts me.

 “I’m here,” I say but I’m pretty sure he can’t hear me.

“Sir, get off of him or I have to call the security!” now a voice almost thunders through my strange world.

Marko’s voice now grows more distant.

Please, Marko, don’t leave me.

 “Markus! Markus! Please come back to me! I miss you so much! I…”

“You have to leave, sir. It’s already past visiting hours!”

 

_I grasp into the void. I scream and yell like a kid for attention. No, they can’t take Marko away._

_He needs me and I need him._

“I,… I’m sorry, Markus. But please, wait for me. Just don’t wait too long, okay?” Marko sounds like he’s giving up already. I don’t want him to.

Where is that usual brightness in his voice? Where is that usual optimism? I thought that would never fade away.

Which makes me question my own condition: how long have I been in this feverlike world?

Somewhere I hear a door get closed and my own world gets awfully silent.

 

_My world starts to change. It gets darker. Grey clouds start to gather in the unreachable horizon and sky._

_Underneath me swirling mist wraps its invisible hands around my ankles and throws me off-balance._

_I scream but do not produce any sounds._

_For the first time I’m really afraid in this world. Especially since it seems to turn_ against _me._

_Does it want to throw me out? The mayhem here makes it difficult for me to hear any new voices at all._

_Is this the sign of me losing contact with the real world?_

_Am I going to die? If so, that means I can never see Marko again. And the last thing he’ll see, is the seemingly unresponsive body of his partner. This is_ not _how I want to die._

_After all, I’m still in my forties. That’s way too young to die, is it not?_

_One night I ‘wake up’ and find out that I’m laying on_ wood _. When I look up to the sky, it’s grey and black and all the shades in-between. A very imposing sight._

_It’s storming and lightning lights up the otherwise dark world. Then I realize there’s rain falling down and soon I’m soaked to the bone._

_The wood I’m standing on isn’t very stable and I fall and even roll_ down?

 _I scream into the night as I realize I’m on deck of a_ ship _. The gigantic mast towers high above me, swaying dangerously. The sails look like big, threatening ghosts in the wind._

_It seems that I just landed into my personal nightmare._

_“MARKO! WHERE ARE YOU?!” I cry out but my prayers are all lost in the chaotic storm. I need to clutch onto the mast to not fall overboard._

_Again, I call out to my friend._

_I wished he was here to calm me down. I hate sailing because it makes me nauseous and seasick. But now, I don’t feel any of those. There’s only fear and a weird hollow thing in my chest._

_Maybe there’s a small storm raging through my heart as well._ If _I still have a heart, that is._

_I sob silently, my tears mixing perfectly with the droplets of rain that run down my cheeks._

_“I’m sorry I couldn’t wake up, Marko. I’m sorry,” I snivel._

_My eyes close and I hope that if the storm finally calms down, I no longer am._

_“MARKUS! MARKUS!”_

_No, it can’t be. I don’t dare to open my eyes._

_Marko’s voice is heard through all the turmoil. His voice, even though he was shouting, sounds still so calm and serene._

_Even now he’s the eye of the storm. Unbelievable, that guy._

_Finally I dare to open my eyes. I’m still in the storm. Marko’s nowhere to be seen but I can hear him loud and clearly now. He’s reaching out to me._

_I shriek when my arms get too tired of holding onto the mast. I slip and threaten to fall overboard if it wasn’t for that railing preventing me from falling._

_But the railing is only so strong and the storm is ever so violent. I gasp and am sure I can actually_ breathe _this time when the railing and I fall into the black water._

_My body hits the clashing waves and then I just don’t see anything anymore._

_Good thing, I can’t feel anything either._

“Markus?”

_A voice so gentle, so friendly._

_“Markus,” the voice tries to wake me up. I can’t._

_“I’m afraid,” I mutter._

“Markus, open your eyes. Please, Markus.”

_“I can’t. I’m underwater. I feel like drowning but without suffocating. I’m afraid.”_

“Open your eyes, please. I beg of you.”

_Okay, only for you, Marko. Only for you. I swear I see his friendly face in the dark circles of the water._

_Even though it isn’t really Marko, he looks like it. And he looks so friendly and his lips look so kissable._

_There’s nothing to lose in this bottomless deep sea, right?_

_I lean in, don’t know how I did that while being underwater, and kiss Marko._

 

“Markus.”

I open my eyes. Marko’s looking right at me.

 My mouth tries to move but it hurts and it’s difficult.

“Marko”, I say without any sounds being produced. My friend, my _lover_. He’s looking at me with such endearing eyes. He’s crying. Tears fill his eyes, making his blue even more watery than ever.

 His tears wet my cheek.

“Don’t cry,” I want to say. I want to tell him everything’s alright.

Marko cups my face. His hand feels warm and reassuring and soothing.

 “Markus, you’re back. Thank heavens, you’re back,” Marko whispers to me.

And then Marko leans in again and kisses me on my frail lips.

In that moment, it feels like he breathes new life and strength into my weak body.

 That simple touch of lips has brought me back to earth.

Marko has literally kissed me awake.


End file.
